I may have no idea how to pronounce his name (Chaypin? Shapan? Chappin’?) but his only number 1 hit, “Cat’s In The Cradle”, has meant that Harry Chapin’s name will survivelong after him.

A tragic story of a father and son who are never able to connect despite the best of intentions, the song revolves around the lines “When you comin’ home? … I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then.”

The family home is the central point of the song, but like the characters, the listener never fully settles there.

It’s an empty, sad place, and this folk-rock song about what home comes to mean to a family has brought a tear to the eye of more than one hard-nosed businessman over the years.